Chapter 11: Nevian Strife

The Nevian space-ship was hurtling upon its way. Space-navigators both, the two Terrestrial officers soon discovered that it was even then moving with a velocity far above that of light and that it must be accelerating at a high rate, even though to them it seemed stationary--they could feel only a gravitational force somewhat less than that of their native Earth.

Bradley, seasoned old campaigner that he was, had retired promptly as soon as he had completed a series of observations, and was sleeping soundly upon a pile of cushions in the first of the three inter-connecting rooms. In the middle room, which was to be Clio’s, Costigan was standing very close to the girl, but was not touching her. His body was rigid, his face was tense and drawn.

“You are wrong, Conway; all wrong,” Clio was saying, very seriously. “I know how you feel, but it’s false chivalry.”

“That isn’t it, at all,” he insisted, stubbornly. “It isn’t only that I’ve got you out here in space, in danger and alone, that’s stopping me. I know you and I know myself well enough to know that what we start now we’ll go through with for life. It doesn’t make any difference, that way, whether I start making love to you now or whether I wait until we’re back on Tellus; but I’m telling you that for your own good you’d better pass me up entirely. I’ve got enough horsepower to keep away from you if you tell me to--not otherwise.”

“I know it, both ways, dear, but...”

“But nothing!” he interrupted. “Can’t you get it into your skull what you’ll be letting yourself in for if you marry me? Assume that we get back, which isn’t sure, by any means. But even if we do, some day--and maybe soon, too, you can’t tell--somebody is going to collect fifty grams of radium for my head.”

“Fifty grams--and everybody knows that Samms himself is rated at only sixty? I knew that you were somebody, Conway!” Clio exclaimed, undeterred. “But at that, something tells me that any pirate will earn even that much reward several times over before he collects it. Don’t be silly, my dear--goodnight.”

She tipped her head back, holding up to him her red, sweetly curved, smiling lips, and his arms swept around her. Her arms went up around his neck and they stood, clasped together in the motionless ecstasy of love’s first embrace.

“Girl, girl, how I love you!” Costigan’s voice was husky, his usually hard eyes were glowing with a tender light. “That settles that. I’ll really live now, anyway, while...”

“Stop it!” she commanded, sharply. “You’re going to live until you die of old age--see if you don’t. You’ll simply have to, Conway!”

“That’s so, too--no percentage in dying now. All the pirates between Tellus and Andromeda couldn’t take me after this--I’ve got too much to live for. Well, goodnight, sweetheart, I’d better beat it--you need some sleep.”

The lovers’ parting was not as simple and straightforward a procedure as Costigan’s speech would indicate, but finally he did seek his own room and relaxed upon a pile of cushions, his stern visage transformed. Instead of the low metal ceiling he saw a beautiful, oval, tanned young face, framed in a golden-blonde corona of hair. His gaze sank into the depths of loyal, honest, dark blue eyes; and looking deeper and deeper into those blue wells he fell asleep. Upon his face, too set and grim by far for a man of his years--the lives of Sector Chiefs of the Triplanetary Service were not easy, nor as a rule were they long--there lingered as he slept that newly-acquired softness of expression, the reflection of his transcendent happiness.

For eight hours he slept soundly, as was his wont, then, also according to his habit and training he came wide awake, with no intermediate stage of napping.

“Clio?” he whispered. “Awake, girl?”

“Awake!” her voice come through the ultra phone, relief in every syllable. “Good heavens, I thought you were going to sleep until we got to wherever it is that we’re going! Come on in, you two--I don’t see how you can possibly sleep, just as though you were home in bed.”

“You’ve got to learn to sleep anywhere if you expect to keep in...” Costigan broke off as he opened the door and saw Clio’s wan face. She had evidently spent a sleepless and wracking eight hours. “Good Lord, Clio, why didn’t you call me?”

“Oh, I’m all right, except for being a little jittery. No need of asking how you feel, is there?”

“No--I feel hungry,” he answered cheerfully. “I’m going to see what we can do about it--or say, guess I’ll see whether they’re still interfering on Samms’ wave.”

He took out the small, insulated case and touched the contact stud lightly with his finger. His arm jerked away powerfully.

“Still at it,” he gave the unnecessary explanation. “They don’t seem to want us to talk outside, but his interference is as good as my talking--they can trace it, of course. Now I’ll see what I can find out about our breakfast.”

He stepped over to the plate and shot its projector beam forward into the control room, where he saw Nerado lying, doglike, at his instrument panel. As Costigan’s beam entered the room a blue light flashed on and the Nevian turned an eye and an arm toward his own small observation plate. Knowing that they were now in visual communication, Costigan beckoned an invitation and pointed to his mouth in what he hoped was the universal sign of hunger. The Nevian waved an arm and fingered controls, and as he did so a wide section of the floor of Clio’s room slid aside. The opening thus made revealed a table which rose upon its low pedestal, a table equipped with three softly-cushioned benches and spread with a glittering array of silver and glassware.

Bowls and platters of a dazzlingly white metal, narrow-waisted goblets of sheerest crystal; all were hexagonal, beautifully and intricately carved or etched in apparently conventional marine designs. And the table utensils of this strange race were peculiar indeed. There were tearing forceps of sixteen needle-sharp curved teeth; there were flexible spatulas; there were deep and shallow ladles with flexible edges; there were many other peculiarly-curved instruments at whose uses the Terrestrials could not even guess; all having delicately-fashioned handles to fit the long slender fingers of the Nevians.

But if the table and its appointments were surprising to the Terrestrials, revealing as they did a degree of culture which none of them had expected to find in a race of beings so monstrous, the food was even more surprising, although in another sense. For the wonderful crystal goblets were filled with a grayish-green slime of a nauseous and over-powering odor, the smaller bowls were full of living sea spiders and other such delicacies; and each large platter contained a fish fully a foot long, raw and whole, garnished tastefully with red, purple, and green strands of seaweed!

Clio looked once, then gasped, shutting her eyes and turning away from the table, but Costigan flipped the three fish into a platter and set it aside before he turned back to the visiplate.

“They’ll go good fried,” he remarked to Bradley, signaling vigorously to Nerado that the meal was not acceptable and that he wanted to talk to him, in person. Finally he made himself clear, the table sank down out of sight, and the Nevian commander cautiously entered the room.

At Costigan’s insistence, he came up to the visiplate, leaving near the door three alert and fully-armed guards. The man then shot the beam into the galley of the pirate’s lifeboat, suggesting that they should be allowed to live there. For some time the argument of arms and fingers raged--though not exactly fluent conversation, both sides managed to convey their meanings quite clearly. Nerado would not allow the Terrestrials to visit their own ship--he was taking no chances--but after a thorough ultra-ray inspection he did finally order some of his men to bring into the middle room the electric range and a supply of Terrestrial food. Soon the Nevian fish were sizzling in a pan and the appetizing odors of coffee and browning biscuit permeated the room. But at the first appearance of those odors the Nevians departed hastily, content to watch the remainder of the curious and repulsive procedure in their visiray plates.

Breakfast over and everything made tidy and ship-shape, Costigan turned to Clio.

“Look here, girl; you’ve got to learn how to sleep. You’re all in. Your eyes look like you’ve been on a Martian picnic and you didn’t eat half enough breakfast. You’ve got to sleep and eat to keep fit. We don’t want you passing out on us, so I’ll put out this light, and you’ll lie down here and sleep until noon.”

“Oh, no, don’t bother. I’ll sleep tonight. I’m quite...”

“You’ll sleep now,” he informed her, levelly. “I never thought of you being nervous, with Bradley and me on each side of you. We’re both right here now, though, and we’ll stay here. We’ll watch over you like a couple of old hens with one chick between them. Come on; lie down and go bye-bye.”

Clio laughed at the simile, but lay down obediently. Costigan sat upon the edge of the great divan holding her hand, and they chatted idly. The silences grew longer, Clio’s remarks became fewer, and soon her long-lashed eyelids fell and her deep, regular breathing showed that she was sound asleep. The man stared at her, his very heart in his eyes. So young, so beautiful, so lovely--and how he did love her! He was not formally religious, but his every thought was a prayer. If he could only get her out of this mess ... he wasn’t fit to live on the same planet with her, but ... just give him one chance, God ... just one!

But Costigan had been laboring for days under a terrific strain, and had been going very short on sleep. Half hypnotized by his own mixed emotions and by his staring at the smooth curves of Clio’s cheek, his own eyes closed and, still holding her hand, he sank down into the soft cushions beside her and into oblivion.

Thus sleeping hand in hand like two children Bradley found them, and a tender, fatherly expression came over his face as he looked down at them.

“Nice little girl, Clio,” he mused, “and when they made Costigan they broke the mold. They’ll do--about as fine a couple of kids as old Tellus ever produced. I could do with some more sleep myself.” He yawned prodigiously, lay down at Clio’s left, and in minutes was himself asleep.

Hours later, both men were awakened by a merry peal of laughter. Clio was sitting up, regarding them with sparkling eyes. She was refreshed, buoyant, ravenously hungry and highly amused. Costigan was amazed and annoyed at what he considered a failure in a self-appointed task; Bradley was calm and matter-of-fact.

“Thanks for being such a nice body-guard, you two.” Clio laughed again, but sobered quickly. “I slept wonderfully well, but I wonder if I can sleep tonight without making you hold my hand all night?”

“Oh, he doesn’t mind doing that,” Bradley commented.

“Mind it!” Costigan exclaimed, and his eyes and his tone spoke volumes.

They prepared and ate another meal, one to which Clio did full justice. Rested and refreshed, they had begun to discuss possibilities of escape when Nerado and his three armed guards entered the room. The Nevian scientist placed a box upon a table and began to make adjustments upon its panels, eyeing the Terrestrials attentively after each setting. After a time a staccato burst of articulate speech issued from the box, and Costigan saw a great light.

“You’ve got it--hold it!” he exclaimed, waving his arms excitedly. “You see, Clio, their voices are pitched either higher or lower than ours--probably higher--and they’ve built an audio-frequency changer. He’s nobody’s fool, that lizard!”

Nerado heard Costigan’s voice, there was no doubt of that. His long neck looped and twisted in Nevian gratification; and although neither side could understand the other, both knew that intelligent speech and hearing were attributes common to the two races. This fact altered markedly the relations between captors and captives. The Nevians admitted among themselves that the strange bipeds might be quite intelligent, after all; and the Terrestrials at once became more hopeful.

“It isn’t so bad, if they can talk,” Costigan summed up the situation. “We might as well take it easy and make the best of it, particularly since we haven’t been able to figure out any possible way of getting away from them. They can talk and hear, and we can learn their language in time. Maybe we can make some kind of a deal with them to take us back to our own system, if we can’t make a break.”

The Nevians being as eager as the Terrestrials to establish communication, Nerado kept the newly devised frequency changer in constant use. There is no need of describing at length the details of that interchange of languages. Suffice it to say that starting at the very bottom they learned as babies learn, but with the great advantage over babies of possessing fully developed and capable brains. And while the human beings were learning the tongue of Nevia, several of the amphibians (and incidentally Clio Marsden) were learning Triplanetarian; the two officers knowing well that it would be much easier for the Nevians to learn the logically-built common language of the Three Planets than to master the senseless intricacies of English.

In a short time the two parties were able to understand each other after a fashion, by using a weird mixture of both languages. As soon as a few ideas had been exchanged, the Nevian scientists built transformers small enough to be worn collar-like by the Terrestrials, and the captives were allowed to roam at will throughout the great vessel; only the compartment in which was stored the dismembered pirate lifeboat being sealed to them. Thus it was that they were not left long in doubt when another fish-shaped cruiser of the void was revealed upon their lookout plates in the awful emptiness of interstellar space.

“This is our sister-ship going to your Solarian system for a cargo of the iron which is so plentiful there,” Nerado explained to his involuntary guests.

“I hope the gang has got the bugs worked out of our super-ship!” Costigan muttered savagely to his companions as Nerado turned away. “If they have, that outfit will get something more than a load of iron when they get there!”

More time passed, during which a blue-white star separated itself from the infinitely distant firmament and began to show a perceptible disk. Larger and larger it grew, becoming bluer and bluer as the flying space-ship approached it, until finally Nevia could be seen, apparently close beside her parent orb.

Heavily laden though the vessel was, such was her power that she was soon dropping vertically downward toward a large lagoon in the middle of the Nevian city. That bit of open water was devoid of life, for this was to be no ordinary landing. Under the terrific power of the beams braking the descent of that unimaginable load of allotropic iron the water seethed and boiled; and instead of floating gracefully upon the surface of the sea, this time the huge ship of space sank like a plummet to the bottom. Having accomplished the delicate feat of docking the vessel safely in the immense cradle prepared for her, Nerado turned to the Tellurians, who, now under guard, had been brought before him.

“While our cargo of iron is being discharged, I am to take you three specimens to the College of Science, where you are to undergo a thorough physical and psychological examination. Follow me.”

“Wait a minute!” protested Costigan, with a quick and furtive wink at his companions. “Do you expect us to go through water, and at this frightful depth?”

“Certainly,” replied the Nevian, in surprise. “You are air-breathers, of course, but you must be able to swim a little, and this slight depth--but little more than thirty of your meters--will not trouble you.”

“You are wrong, twice,” declared the Terrestrial, convincingly. “If by ‘swimming’ you mean propelling yourself in or through the water, we know nothing of it. In water over our heads we drown helplessly in a minute or two, and the pressure at this depth would kill us instantly.”

“Well, I could take a lifeboat, of course, but that...” the Nevian Captain began, doubtfully, but broke off at the sound of a staccato call from his signal panel.

“Captain Nerado, attention!”

“Nerado,” he acknowledged into a microphone.

“The Third City is being attacked by the fishes of the greater deeps. They have developed new and powerful mobile fortresses mounting unheard-of weapons and the city reports that it cannot long withstand their attack. They are asking for all possible help. Your vessel not only has vast stores of iron, but also mounts weapons of power. You are requested to proceed to their aid at the earliest possible moment.”

Nerado snapped out orders and the liquid iron fell in streams from wide-open ports, forming a vast, red pool in the bottom of the dock. In a short time the great vessel was in equilibrium with the water she displaced, and as soon as she had attained a slight buoyancy the ports snapped shut and Nerado threw on the power.

“Go back to your own quarters and stay there until I send for you,” the Nevian directed, and as the Terrestrials obeyed the curt orders the cruiser tore herself from the water and flashed up into the crimson sky.